The Karnataka government cannot simply wish away child malnutrition in the State by filing rosy affidavits before the court and by constituting a monitoring committee – reprimanded the Karnataka High Court, which on Wednesday ordered the government to scrap its monitoring committee and instead propose names for the new committee. Ironically, the government had previously formed another committee at the behest of the Court but ignored its suggestions.
On April 3, the High Court had taken the government to task for failing to arrest child malnutrition and subsequent deaths. Hearing out a PIL, the division bench headed by Chief Justice Vikramajit Sen said, “You (government) are not doing anything. Children are dying. What made you constitute a committee without our advice? If you are so efficient, there should be no malnutrition deaths. But you still want to monitor when you do not know anything about it.”
According to sources, the monitoring committee was appointed in haste on March 27, 2012, just ahead of the PIL hearing on malnutrition on April 3. The committee to be chaired by Justice B. Padmaraj, retired judge of Karnataka High Court, was constituted to ‘monitor and implement schemes like Integrated Child Development Services.
Slamming the government’s affidavit, which claimed Rs 785 crore had been allocated to tackle malnutrition, the court said, “It is a worthless affidavit and is like a political speech. There is nothing new in this. How much are you spending on the committee?.” Ironically, the government had earlier constituted another Committee in October 2011, after the High Court admonished the government over high incidence of malnutrition and deaths. The five-member expert committee had recommended a nutritional plan and also gave recommendations to finetune nutritional intervention.
However, miffed over the committee pointing out gaps in the intervention programmes, the government ignored its recommendations and announced its own nutritional plan. State co-ordinator of Samajik Parivarthan Janandolan Y Mariswamy, said, “The Committee demanded that pre packaged food should be replaced with hot and freshly prepared meals. But the state took refuge in a fund crunch.”